SIKKIM Chief Minister Leads the Way

KC PRADHAN on the CM’s Sikkim Bhraman, how it has drawn remote areas into the development and empowerment process and how the people at large at the civil society should respond to the CM’s call to cleanse Sikkim of corruption and denial…

I am closely following the Chief Minister’s 40-day village-to-village grassroot level public interaction tour through all corners of Sikkim both, on the local TV channel and the dailies, with considerable interest and delight. Meeting people from far corners of the State like Dhupidara, Labdang, Karchi, which I consider the most neglected, and making the Heads of Departments see the ground reality has gladdened my heart. I had occasion to see their plight and have often hoped that development start from such far away corners. It has been a good 50 years since I saw them literally in rags and to see them in pictures now, well dressed, empowered and articulate enough to demand their rights, I say to myself, “Yes, Sikkim has really changed and changed for the better. All other sentiments set aside.”

The highlight, as stated in the local paper Sikkim NOW! 20 June: “The CM has also been issuing strong statements against the bane of the development process- the trend of pocketing commission/percentage in the name of the party and the government”; and in Sikkim Express 21 June: “Stating that the party has taken up an initiative to abolish the percentage system, Chamling reiterated his statement that no one should entertain percentage and bribes in the name of the SDF party”, has genuinely struck a chord with me.
This is the bane of present-day Sikkim’s developmental activities, rather governance, and I’ve often wondered why despite so many wonderful programmes and constructive vision for a better Sikkim as initiated by the Chief Minister, whether this menace called “Percentage for Party Fund” will augur well in his visionary march for Sikkim - with all-round prosperity, tranquility, peace and happiness. It is an admitted fact that the gulf between the haves and have-nots is widening at a pace which will certainly bring chaos and social unrest to Sikkim in the not too distant future.
Sikkim has no poverty as such, and temperamentally, the Sikkimese are a happier lot. But the scale of swindling by certain sections of society has left a larger section of the populace here gape at their wealth in awe. But they remain dumb out of sheer fear. To say Sikkim is doing better than the rest of the seven sister States of the North-East has no room for complacency as Sikkim was already way ahead of these States. As the Chief Minster rightly propounded, Sikkim should strive to be the best, best not in mere economic jargons based on GDP and GNP which will soon be out of fashion, as we see social unrest around the world, but a State with people as genuine human beings with all the required virtues. Soon, there will be a new economic order - an order in which people will find inner happiness, peace, a sense of security away from the madness of this economic-globalization.
It is also important to understand why people tend to become corrupt - especially in the developing countries: The first is a sense of insecurity. Insecurity in terms of housing, good education for their children, better health care and a decent standard of living. Once these basic necessities become dismal, people realize the need to amass wealth that will take care of these needs. In the process, things go overboard, a chain-reaction follows and the gap widens to untold ramifications. As narrated in my memoir, a junior officer quietly slipped a piece of paper under my glass table-top some twenty years back. This was a short verse:

To fight or not to fight- that is the question:
Whether ‘twas nobler to remain honest
In the milieu of others with dishonest wealth,
Or to have suffered the pains of poverty, with an air of dignity.
To take up arms against the corrupt- to fight-to win, Or join
Them to a glass of wine and laugh at the honest fools.

The verse is short, the man is no more, but he has said and said it so eloquently, the fall back of which is increasingly been seen all around the world.
Sikkim is ideally suited to establish the best of educational institutions from primary to higher education. This is as true for the field of health and medical services due to its sublime climate. Housing comes with better infrastructural facilities, well planned and well dispersed in the State. The State is also well financed by the scores of banking services that have mushroomed in the state for reasons best known to themselves. But there should be a good mix of both public and private enterprises and confining all within the Government domain is wishful thinking.
When we talk of housing we must take a re-look at the antiquated land tenure system which has outlived its utility. This was in fact one of the main demands of the people in their uprising of the early 1970s. Sikkim must change with the changing times.
Our own country is passing through a different and difficult time in history. Corruption has come to the forefront as never before. Whether it be Baba Ramdev’s tamasha or Anna Hazare’s stubborness, people have realized enough is enough and there is no going back. Lokpal Bill will be drafted and redrafted. Parliament will go into slumber and cacophony with the Opposition not allowing it to function. But this is neither the remedy nor good for sensible citizens and the country at large. The remedy is to start functioning- right now, today. Tomorrow will be too late.
As I have stated many times over in the local papers and monthly magazine Talk Sikkim, “Politicians who come to office for five-year terms can afford to be corrupt to fend for rainy days, but certainly not the bureaucrats and the government machinery which have been paid for handsomely much to the discomfort of a resource starved State like Sikkim”.
But here I stop.
Since no one should be corrupt, the elected representatives should be handsomely paid with sizeable sumptuary allowance at their disposal. If the top is honest and he means it, the others lower in the ladder have no alternative but to mend their ways. For the Government employees, who are the most highly paid in the country with equally handsome pensions to lead dignified lives for the rest of their lives, to still go on merrily swindling public money, as if it is their right to do so, is not acceptable any more.
From that standpoint, I for one, highly applaud the Chief Minister’s bluntness, I know it is to the discomfort of many, but he has already put the essence of the much hyped Lokpal Bill or Act into action. It is now for the people of Sikkim at large to see and see without any fear that percentage, bribes, commissions are not the done thing and stamp it out wherever it occurs. The ball is in our court.
But, in a democratic setup like India’s, where votes can still be purchased in an environment of illiteracy, I can say for sure that this will not be the case in Sikkim anymore. People have come of age. It is development that matters. Thanks to Pawan Chamling for his boldness to give people the freedom to speak. But if people, high and mighty do not speak out of fear or sheer inferiority complex or just because they are dishonest, that is a quite different matter. He has blazed a path that is irreversible. The intelligentsia and the civil society at large cannot and should not be armchair critics anymore. It is time to think, study, deliberate, discuss and churn out what is good and put it squarely in the Chief Minister’s domain and support him where support is required and give constructive alternatives wherever it is found wanting. We have our hope in our younger generations. May more Aparjita Rais and her kind blossom in this sacred land and find place of pride where ever they go and in whatever fields they ventured into. Sikkim and Sikkimese, though minuscule both in size and number, have a special entity within the Union of the country. As long as adjustability and resilience flow in our blood, there is nothing that should dither us in our march ahead, as amply exemplified by our young boys and girls excelling in many fields around the world
So let us resolve to become better watch dogs and say loud and clear Corruption at all levels in Sikkim is NO, NO. Our meekness should no longer be taken as weakness. The fly-by-night operators must be hounded. It is time to do away with personal and inner differences and unite to make a better Sikkim as envisioned by the present Chief Minster.

Source:SIKKIM NOW